Who's the ultimate Falcon? And who's the ultimate anti-Falcon? That's what we're going to find out with our summer project: the Scale of Falconliness. We'll rate former Falcons on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most Falconly. The rule: minimum of three seasons with the Falcons for coaches, five seasons for players.
John Zook, Defensive End (1969 - 1975)
Falconly |
Unfalconly |
- Never missed a game in seven seasons as an Atlanta Falcon.
- 1973 Pro Bowler.
- In 1971, he put up as many sacks as Hall of Famer Alan Page. Page became the first-ever defender to win the NFL MVP award, and Zook did not. The awesome part: nobody knows how many sacks that is. What did they do back in the '70s, relay oral histories instead of print box scores?
- Had his own bannered cheering section at Atlanta-Fulton County: the Happy Zookers.
- ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Recorded the first safety in Atlanta Falcons history.
- His college coach, Pepper Rodgers, who's somehow popped up at least three times in this series, once said Zook "never played but full speed from snap one to snap hundred. He was the most full-speed player on every snap that you could imagine."
- NORM VAN BROCKLIN once forcefully proclaimed the Zook-Claude Humphrey connection the NFL's best defensive end combo.
- "THE ZOOKER HAS BEEN OUR MOST CONSISTENT PLAYER," RAGED NORM VAN BROCKLIN.
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- Spent his last four years as a St. Louis Cardinal, and not the ones Dave roots for.
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Current standings after the jump: